Round Two of House Fetal Tissue Hearings Opens with Partisan Fisticuffs

Chair of the special House investigating committee, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) wants to stop the sale of fetal tissue from abortions to researchers. ASCB photo by Tommy Mattocks

Chair of the special House investigating committee, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) wants to stop the sale of fetal tissue from abortions to researchers. ASCB photo by Tommy Mattocks

With a bang of the gavel, round two of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Investigatory Committee on Infant Lives began on April 20. And just as quickly, a verbal sparring match erupted.

The Select Investigatory Committee on Infant Lives was formed last summer after a series of videos emerged suggesting that Planned Parenthood was profiting commercially from the sale of fetal tissue to researchers. This was the second hearing before the investigating committee. In the first, focused on the bioethics of fetal tissue research, noted stem cell researcher Lawrence Goldstein of the University of California, San Diego, a former chair of the ASCB Public Policy Committee, testified that the use of such tissue was essential and ethical. The second hearing focused on the pricing of fetal tissue. From the start, the hearings have been ferociously partisan, with the Republican majority seeing the use of fetal tissue as another front in the battle against abortion and the Democratic minority focusing on protecting legitimate scientific research.

At this second hearing, the Republican majority tried to make the case that procurement companies were reaping unconscionable profits from the sale and transfer of fetal tissue and that these same companies were promising big payouts to abortion providers who supplied the tissue. These actions would probably violate current federal law, which allows “reasonable payments for transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal issue,” although current law does not specify what constitutes “reasonable.” The Democratic minority challenged the evidence submitted by the majority as inadequate and self-manufactured. Much heat was expended at the hearing but little light emerged.

Calling the committee to order, Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) in her opening statement presented what she said were more than 30 documents for the record, proof she alleged that StemExpress, a California-based cell and tissue procurement company, was making profits far in excess of reasonable costs by selling fetal tissue. That’s when the fireworks began.

Congresswoman Dianne DeGette (D-CO) immediately interrupted the Chair. “I’m concerned about these so-called exhibits,” Rep. DeGette said. “I don’t think they’re designed to find the facts on fetal tissue research. If they were, we would have called StemExpress in or we would have taken depositions.” Rep. DeGette then asked that the exhibits be withdrawn until their credibility could be established. Rep. DeGette pointed out that a number of exhibits were little more than screenshots from the website of StemExpress, which the company had already denounced as misleading.

Chairwoman Blackburn continued her remarks, promising that the hearing will “reveal for-profit procurement business and several abortion clinics may have acted in violation of federal law by profiting from the sale of baby body parts, organs, and tissues.”

The panel of experts summoned by the committee consisted of four called by the majority and two by the minority. None of the witnesses represented any of the procurement companies allegedly under investigation, including StemExpress. None were scientists, physicians, or technical experts on the transfer of cell, blood, or tissue samples. Instead, all the witnesses on both sides were lawyers. The lawyers called by the majority all contended that the documents submitted by Blackburn were sufficient to trigger a criminal investigation. The two witnesses presenting for the Democrats disagreed. One witness for the minority, Robert Raben, warned the committee that its panel of legal experts was merely speculating about whether the contested documents even showed criminal misconduct.

Both sides stuck to their talking points, the Democrats questioning the validity of the evidence and the Republicans insisting a crime was taking place. Attorney Catherine Glenn Foster of the Charlotte Lozier Institute and a witness for the majority stated, “Indeed the trade in fetal body parts is a business. As demonstrated by the evidence presented by this panel, clinics and procurement companies have been getting away with charging far more than the allowed costs for harvesting, transporting, and warehousing body parts as they wait for customers.”

Finally, after several hours of verbal scuffling, the hearing came to an end with Rep. DeGette challenging the committee’s majority to submit its disputed exhibits immediately to federal prosecutors. “If you want to send this to the Department of Justice for investigation… they’ll get to the bottom of it… I think that’s what you should do if you think there’s a criminal violation.”

About the Author:


Tommy Mattocks is the new Public Policy Coordinator for ASCB. He previously worked in the U.S. Senate as the Press intern for Senator Maria Cantwell (D-CA), and Senator Tom Carper (D-DE).